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Perceptions of silvopasture systems among adopters in northeast Argentina

January 2012
Agricultural Systems 105(1):21–32

January 2012
105(1):21–32

DOI:10.1016/j.agsy.2011.09.001

Authors:

Gregory E. Frey

US Forest Service

Hugo Fassola

Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria

Anibal Nahuel A Pachas

Queensland Government

Luis Colcombet

Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria

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Farmers’ perceptions over time of an agroforestry technology can have an important impact on adoption and disadoption. Their perceptions, in turn, may be influenced by the type and scale of farm they own and the social networks they create. We examined the factors underlying producers’ perceptions of silvopasture systems at the time of adoption and perceptions following several years of experience, and the factors explaining discontinuance of systems in Argentina. We found that while most adopters indicated that other people influenced their decision about whether or not to adopt silvopasture, the type of person that influenced them (professionals vs. other farmers) did not affect adopters’ perceptions of the relative benefits and challenges of the system. However, farm scale and farm type did explain farmers’ perceptions to a good degree. Smaller-scale farmers were less likely to see costs and returns as benefits of the system, but more likely to see cash flow properties as important advantages. Farmers’ perceptions after experiencing the system were good predictors of likely discontinuance, but influential people, farm scales, farm type, and perceptions at the time of adoption were not.

Map of the study region, with numbers indicating number of respondents in subregions (total 44 respondents) to indicate approximate distribution of respondents. Exact locations of respondent farms are not mapped to protect confidentiality. Farms were selected for the survey to represent distinct geographic regions, farm scales, and farm types.

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Categories and rate of responses for farmers' positive perceptions of silvopasture.

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Categories and rate of responses for farmers' negative perceptions of silvopasture.

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Results of the binary logit model for farmer's stated likely continuance or discontinuance.

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Perceptions of silvopasture systems among adopters in northeast Argentina

Gregory E. Frey

⇑

, Hugo E. Fassola

, A. Nahuel Pachas

, Luis Colcombet

, Santiago M. Lacorte

Oscar Pérez

, Mitch Renkow

, Sarah T. Warren

, Frederick W. Cubbage

Department of Agricultural Research, Virginia State University, Petersburg, VA, USA

Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, EEA Montecarlo, Argentina

Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, CR Misiones, Posadas, Argentina

Universidad Nacional de Misiones, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Eldorado, Argentina

Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

article info

Article history:

Received 15 June 2011

Received in revised form 15 September

2011

Accepted 18 September 2011

Keywords:

Farm type

Farm scale

Agroforestry

Discontinuance

Silvopasture

Argentina

abstract

Farmers’ perceptions over time of an agroforestry technology can have an important impact on adoption

and disadoption. Their perceptions, in turn, may be inﬂuenced by the type and scale of farm they own and

the social networks they create. We examined the factors underlying producers’ perceptions of silvopas-

ture systems at the time of adoption and perceptions following several years of experience, and the fac-

tors explaining discontinuance of systems in Argentina. We found that while most adopters indicated

that other people inﬂuenced their decision about whether or not to adopt silvopasture, the type of person

that inﬂuenced them (professionals vs. other farmers) did not affect adopters’ perceptions of the relative

beneﬁts and challenges of the system. However, farm scale and farm type did explain farmers’ percep-

tions to a good degree. Smaller-scale farmers were less likely to see costs and returns as beneﬁts of

the system, but more likely to see cash ﬂow properties as important advantages. Farmers’ perceptions

after experiencing the system were good predictors of likely discontinuance, but inﬂuential people, farm

scales, farm type, and perceptions at the time of adoption were not.

1. Introduction

In many parts of the world, agroforestry adoption has pro-

ceeded slowly despite apparent beneﬁts. This has prompted signif-

icant research focusing on the factors that affect adoption

(Pattanayak et al., 2003). Studies have shown that, in addition to

market, biological, and demographic factors, farmers’ subjective

perceptions of a technology play a key role in agricultural technol-

ogy adoption (Rogers, 2003; Fliegel and Kivlin, 1966; Adesina and

Baiduforson, 1995; Ajayi, 2007; Khan et al., 2008). Adopters’ per-

ceptions can, in turn, be inﬂuenced by their experiences and social

networks with other people (Kearns, 1992; German et al., 2006).

These might include other farmers in cooperatives, neighbors,

and extension agents.

Previous studies of farmers’ views of agroforestry systems have

focused almost exclusively on the question of whether farmers

adopt a technology or do not adopt it, and have not emphasized

their perceptions of the technology after having practiced it. How-

ever, as Kiptot et al. (2007) point out, a classiﬁcation system of only

adopters vs. non-adopters is an oversimpliﬁcation of the way farm-

ers understand a new technology. Discontinuance or disadoption is

a very real possibility for a system that does not meet expectations

(Parthasarathy and Bhattacherjee, 1998; German et al., 2006;

Kiptot et al., 2007). Also, many farmers will test a technology on

their ﬁelds or wait to see results from neighbors’ ﬁelds before

deciding fully to adopt. The ‘‘testing period’’ in areas such as infor-

mation technology may be relatively short (Spiller et al., 2007), but

for technologies with long, discrete waiting periods for full beneﬁts

to be achieved, such as is the case with a system that includes a

tree component grown for timber, testing periods may be longer,

perhaps as long as the timber rotation period. Therefore, use of

agroforestry technology, even for a number of years, may not nec-

essarily equate with future continuance.

Adopters’ perceptions of an available technology can and will

change over time as they learn more about the beneﬁts and chal-

lenges it creates (Bhattacherjee, 2001). This change in perception

may be one of the key driving forces behind discontinuance, but

it has not received consistent treatment in the agroforestry diffu-

sion literature. However, evidence from the information technol-

ogy adoption literature suggests that initial perceptions (at the

time of adoption) can be strong predictors of future discontinuance

(Parthasarathy and Bhattacherjee, 1998). Also, whether or not an

doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2011.09.001

⇑

Corresponding author. Address: P.O. Box 9081, Petersburg, VA 23806, USA. Tel.:

+1 804 524 6967.

E-mail address: gfrey@vsu.edu (G.E. Frey).

Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Agricultural Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agsy

Author's personal copy

adopter uses social networks to make the adoption decision or

makes the decision independently can help predict discontinu-

ance; those who make the decision alone are more likely to con-

tinue than those who make decisions via social networks

(Parthasarathy and Bhattacherjee, 1998). These results have not

been tested with agroforestry continuance/discontinuance.

Other factors may inﬂuence farmers’ perceptions of the agrofor-

estry technology. Pérez (2006) found that while large-, medium-,

and small-scale farmers in Honduras manage silvopasture systems

in similar ways, their total net revenues and net revenues from for-

estry vs. livestock were quite different. Agroforestry can play dif-

ferent roles for distinct classes of farms and farm managers.

This research was designed to advance our knowledge about the

factors that impact farmers’ perceptions of an agroforestry technol-

ogy and the factors that explain discontinuance. The primary

objective of this study was to investigate the factors that affect

the perceptions of different kinds of farmers about a speciﬁc agro-

forestry technology – silvopasture systems in northeastern Argen-

tina. As opposed to previous work on perceptions of agricultural

technologies, we do not compare the perceptions of adopters vs.

non-adopters, but rather that of different classes of adopters (e.g.,

small-scale vs. large-scale) at different points in time. We test

independent variables such as farm scale, farm type (based on

main products produced prior to adopting silvopasture), and the

categories of people who were inﬂuential in helping with the adop-

tion decision (e.g., extension agents and other farmers) for power

in explaining farmers’ perceptions.

A second objective was to model likely discontinuance of the

system. While discontinuance has been studied in ﬁelds such as

information technology adoption, it has largely been ignored in

agroforestry adoption literature, with a few notable exceptions

(Keil et al., 2005; Kiptot et al., 2007). One reason that discontinu-

ance is not fully investigated in agroforestry is because of time

scale. If the trees in the system are eventually to be utilized for tim-

ber or some other long-term investment, farmers are unlikely to

discontinue in the middle of a rotation because they have invested

resources in a relatively high-value future product. While it is pos-

sible to leave the standing timber and discontinue the intensive

management of the various other components (livestock, crops),

there may be a range of management practices of varying intensity,

and it is not often a clear distinction to determine that agroforestry

has been discontinued unless the trees are cut and not replanted.

Furthermore, farmers may purposefully remove the livestock or

crop component during a certain portion of the timber rotation;

such a system could still be considered agroforestry. For these rea-

sons, discontinuance of agroforestry can be difﬁcult to track with-

out following an entire cycle of the system. Agroforestry research

has not always been conducted through a complete timber rota-

tion; in general institutional research programs do not extend that

long.

We hope to contribute towards a future framework to under-

stand how perceptions and other factors affect continuance vs. dis-

continuance among different classes of adopters. Our study uses

farmers’ stated likelihood of future continuance or discontinuance

of the system as a proxy for what they will actually do once they

are able to harvest the timber. While the stated likelihood is not

a completely accurate predictor of actual discontinuance, it still

provides important information.

Finally, we hope to extend knowledge about the beneﬁts and

costs of silvopasture systems. While a few studies have revealed

the ways farmers perceive silvopasture, because adoption has not

been widespread in many countries, there is a need for a greater

understanding of how farmers perceive the system and how

those perceptions change over time. We discuss the literature

about farmers’ views and opinions of silvopasture in the Americas

below.

1.1. Perceptions of silvopasture in the Americas

A study by Shrestha et al. (2004) in Florida, USA, interviewed

three relevant opinion leaders for silvopasture and found that the

system had the strengths and opportunities of providing a strong

sense of stewardship and satisfaction to adopters, aiding in envi-

ronmental protection, and helping to diversify income. On the

other hand, characteristics such as ﬁre hazard, uncertainty about

government regulations, and the length of the silvopasture invest-

ment were the major weaknesses of and threats to silvopasture

adoption (Shrestha et al., 2004). While the method used by

Shrestha et al. (2004) of interviewing opinion leaders is beneﬁcial

for obtaining a quick assessment of system potential, they note

that surveying a larger sample is desirable to gather a more

representative view of heterogeneous opinions among adopters

or potential adopters.

Pérez (2006) noted the beneﬁts and limitations that silvopas-

ture adopters in Copán, Honduras, perceived, using a sample of

29 adopters. The economic and ecological beneﬁts of silvopasture

were perceived as being approximately equally important, and

there was no signiﬁcant difference in the perceptions of the bene-

ﬁts of silvopasture for small-, medium-, and large-scale farmers. In

terms of the limitations of silvopasture systems, the lack of the

ability to obtain seedlings or cuttings cheaply for tree planting

was important, especially for small- and medium-scale farmers.

Several silvopasture adopters also lamented the lack of support

from agricultural institutions, the amount of labor involved in

managing silvopasture, and tree mortality.

Calle (2008) conducted surveys of 28 farmers involved with sil-

vopasture programs in Quindío, Colombia, to investigate farmers’

motivations for adoption, the beneﬁts they presently perceive in

silvopasture systems, and the changes in attitudes they underwent

after practicing silvopasture. Calle (2008) noted that the principal

beneﬁts perceived by silvopasture adopters are private beneﬁts

(e.g., reduced used of fertilizer inputs, improved food supplies for

cattle), and public environmental beneﬁts (e.g., increased wildlife

biodiversity). The primary barriers to silvopasture adoption noted

by the adopters were the high cost of establishment and the lack

of information and knowledge about the system. Calle (2008) also

observed the changes in farmers’ attitudes over time regarding

participation in silvopasture extension programs. The study

showed that farmers more readily accepted that trees and pasture

can coexist in a single plot. More notably, farmers reported gaining

a greater understanding of biological/ecological processes, the

importance of the environment in general, and sustainable

practices.

A legitimate question is: Given these previous studies on per-

ceptions of silvopasture systems in the Americas, can we gain

knowledge from one more study of perceptions of silvopasture?

We believe that a better understanding of both the factors affecting

perceptions and their change over time and also the factors that af-

fect discontinuance of the technology in Argentina can inform

other silvopastural practitioners and proponents in other parts of

the world. Although Pérez (2006) noted some differences between

‘‘small-scale’’ and ‘‘large-scale’’ farms in Honduras and Shrestha

et al. (2004) interviewed a small- and large-scale farmer in Florida,

research where silvopastural practices have been widely adopted is

rare. Argentina is one of the few places where silvopasture using

planted trees has been readily adopted at different scales of farm-

ing systems, from small, annual-cropping, semi-subsistence farms

up to large, corporate forestry enterprises, and cattle ranches.

There are potential beneﬁts of this study within Argentina.

Extension to potential adopters can be strengthened by under-

standing how more experienced farmers view the technology. Be-

cause there are multiple constraints to adoption of silvopasture

systems, such as the high front-end investment requirement in

22 G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32

Author's personal copy

capital and labor (Dagang and Nair, 2003; Pagiola et al., 2004), if

we are to expect good adoption of agroforestry systems, we should

properly understand the motivations and expectations of the farm-

ers who may be adopting them (Dagang and Nair, 2003).

2. Study area

The study area of Misiones and northeastern Corrientes prov-

inces (Fig. 1) corresponds to the phytogeographic region known

as the Provincia Paranaense (Cabrera, 1976), where two distinct dis-

tricts are found – the subtropical forests of central and northern

Misiones, and the grasslands of southern Misiones and northeast-

ern Corrientes (Cabrera, 1976; Rodriguez et al., 2004). The soils

are derived from the weathering of basaltic rocks, forming reddish

clay soils, principally Ultisols and Oxisols. The climate is humid

and subtropical

(Rodriguez et al., 2004). The average annual precip-

itation is around 1900 mm, with an average annual temperature of

approximately 21 °C(Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, 2008).

There are diverse farming systems in the region. Northeastern

Corrientes and southern Misiones have been traditionally used

for extensive cattle grazing, now operated by large estancias. Cen-

tral and northern Misiones were only settled to a large extent in

the 1920s; some of the more remote parts remain relatively undis-

turbed. This area is commonly utilized by small- and medium-scale

semi-subsistence farmers and cash cropping farmers who raise

either perennials such as tea (Camellia sinensis) and yerba mate

(Ilex paraguariensis), or annuals such as tobacco (Nicotiana spp.).

Since the 1970s, the number of forest-product ﬁrms operating in

central and northern Misiones has increased. Initially these ﬁrms

planted native Araucaria angustifolia and now primarily plant exo-

tic pine species (Pinus spp.) for timber.

Misiones and northeastern Corrientes have recently experi-

enced relatively widespread adoption of silvopasture systems

among farms of all scales and types, in comparison to adoption

in many other parts of the world. While some adoption did take

place in the 1970s, silvopasture was more widely researched in

the 1980s, resulting in visibly improved management of the forage,

livestock, and timber components. This research has led to increas-

ing adoption of the practice (Fassola et al., 2004b). Silvopasture

implementation had reached an extent of over 20,000 ha. by 2008.

Fassola et al. (2004a) found that silvopasture in Misiones and

Corrientes has the potential to allow producers to diversify prod-

ucts, improve quality of products, reduce management costs, and

reap other beneﬁts. Indeed, cost-beneﬁt analyses of silvopasture

in Argentina demonstrate that silvopasture could be quite produc-

tive economically, in comparison with traditional agricultural sys-

tems (Esquivel et al., 2004; Fassola et al., 2004a).

In order to encourage the forest-product industry in Misiones,

the national government of Argentina authorized cost-share pro-

grams in 1992 and again in 2000 to offset a portion of the costs

of site preparation and plantation. In addition to conventional for-

est plantations, this program aided silvopasture adoption among

cattle ranchers and annual and perennial cash croppers. It func-

tioned fairly well until the Argentine ﬁnancial crisis of 2001, after

which time there has been a long waiting list for payments. Subse-

quently, many farm adopters and forest product ﬁrms (which

would have been receiving forestry incentive payments regardless

of silvopasture adoption), adopted silvopasture without the expec-

tation of ﬁnancial incentives.

Apart from the national cost-share program, smaller programs

have been started through extension programs in districts

throughout Misiones province for silvopasture among small land-

holders. These special extension programs have provided in-kind

capital inputs such as tree seedlings, pasture seed or transplants,

and fencing materials.

3. Interview methods

We employed a mixed-methods approach to data gathering,

conducting a semi-structured open-ended set of interviews among

silvopasture adopters in the Misiones and northeastern Corrientes

provinces of northeastern Argentina during June and July of 2006,

Fig. 1. Map of the study region, with numbers indicating number of respondents in subregions (total 44 respondents) to indicate approximate distribution of respondents.

Exact locations of respondent farms are not mapped to protect conﬁdentiality. Farms were selected for the survey to represent distinct geographic regions, farm scales, and

farm types.

Cfa under the Köppen–Geiger climate classiﬁcation system.

G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32 23

Author's personal copy

and June of 2008. The instrument was initially reviewed within a

focus group of extension agents and research scientists of the Insti-

tuto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) from the region.

Subsequently we conducted a pre-test with producers at varying

farm scales.

Random sampling was not practical because the complete pop-

ulation of adopters was not known, and because of the distances

between individual adopters. Thus we designed a stratiﬁed, purpo-

sive sample. Adopters were selected speciﬁcally to represent the

continuum of diverse farm scales in sub-regions throughout the

two provinces. They were identiﬁed by INTA researchers and

extension agents. In cases where the potential respondents were

not available or chose not to participate, similar respondents with-

in the same community as members of the original list were se-

lected as alternates. Forty-seven silvopasture practitioners were

interviewed, producing 44 usable responses. Interviews were con-

ducted once per respondent, on farm, in Spanish, with the same

team conducting all interviews. Because practitioners were being

asked to provide information about two distinct points in time

(the period when they adopted silvopastoral practices and the

present), the opportunity for distortions based on recall was min-

imized by asking respondents ﬁrst to consider details about the ini-

tial adoption period.

Clusters of questions most important for our analysis focused

on: the advantages and disadvantages that the managers perceived

in the silvopasture system at two points in time (the present and

the time of adoption), people who inﬂuenced them in their decision

to adopt agroforestry, whether they would be likely to continue or

discontinue practicing silvopasture given current prices and incen-

tive policies, and whether they would continue the practice if all

cost-share and in-kind support programs were terminated.

3.1. Respondent characteristics

Respondent characteristics are summarized in Table 1. The 44

respondents were classiﬁed into three farm ‘‘scale’’ groups using

natural clusters of farm size: small-scale (15–50 ha.), medium-

scale (75–800 ha.), and large-scale (>1100 ha.). The range of farm

sizes was between 15 and 14,000 ha. (with a mean of 1253 ha.

and median of 233 ha.). Farm size was determined by including

all properties in the near vicinity that were owned by the respon-

dent. Respondents’ farms were classiﬁed into four farm ‘‘types’’

according to the principal production system besides silvopasture:

forest plantation farms, cattle farms, perennial cash crop farms,

and annual crop farms. Interviews were conducted with individu-

als on each farm who participated in day-to-day farm management

decisions, including the silvopasture parcels. Of these, 38 respon-

dents were the legal landholder, while 6 respondents were profes-

sionals contracted to manage the farm. Respondents had an

average formal education of 10.5 years, but included elementary

school drop-outs to post-graduates. Thirty-nine of the 44 respon-

dents (89%) were male. All respondents lived on-farm or in nearby

communities.

4. Methods

4.1. Dependent variable: Net perceptions

Quantitative content analysis involves the coding of key words

and phrases in verbal or written communication, and counting

these statements to compare how different groups communicate

(Berelson, 1952). As a modiﬁed approach, we added and subtracted

positive and negative statements in the same manner to achieve

the same principle. Shiferaw and Holden (1998) and Sall et al.

(2000) used ordinal scales of perceptions in terms of agricultural

technology adoption, although the variables were created in a

slightly different manner.

Our coding of the data was focused on determining how differ-

ent groups communicated their perceptions, by grouping and

counting similar phrases as described by Berelson (1952) and Krip-

pendorff (2004). Farmers’ responses to open-ended questions

about their positive and negative perceptions of silvopasture sys-

tems generally refer to speciﬁc attributes of the technology, which

makes the information easier to compare with other silvopasture

studies. It was difﬁcult in some cases, however, to untangle the

speciﬁc attributes from the underlying motivation. For example,

one farmer might cite as a beneﬁt the greater quantity of pasture;

another that shade reduces heat stress on cattle. In the end, both of

these are beneﬁts to the farmer because they increase revenues

from the sale of beef. Consequently, we grouped responses into

categories by interpreting the underlying motivations by which

they are seen as positive or negative. Because the questions were

open-ended, respondents gave multiple answers. For this reason,

similar responses were pooled and percentages derived from the

analysis do not add up to 100%.

Farmers’ responses for the positives and negatives they per-

ceived at the two points in time were classiﬁed into six categories

of system characteristics, using a classiﬁcation similar to that pio-

neered by Rogers (2003). This categorization is commonly used in

technology characterization and perception literature (Fliegel and

Kivlin, 1966; Parthasarathy and Bhattacherjee, 1998), with some

modiﬁcations. The adapted classiﬁcation system is as follows:

Costs – Perceptions about whether the technology has a rela-

tively high (disadvantage) or relative low (advantage) level of

costs. This includes both start-up costs and continuing costs.

Table 1

Summary respondent characteristics.

Category Variable Description nMean

Relationship to farm Landholder Legal landholder 38 0.86

Manager Other professional hired to manage the farmland 6 0.14

Farm scale Small 15–50 ha. (sum of all land owned in the study region) 16 0.36

Medium 75–800 ha. 16 0.36

Large >1100 ha. 12 0.27

Farm type Perennial Principal farm output before beginning silvopasture was perennial crop (yerba mate, tea) 9 0.21

Cattle Principal farm output was cattle 16 0.36

Crops Principal farm output was annual crops (tobacco, corn, cassava, etc.) 13 0.30

Forestry Principal farm output was timber 6 0.14

Inﬂuential person

Professional Adoption decision was inﬂuenced by an extension agent or professional consultant 28 0.64

Farmer Adoption decision was inﬂuenced by another farmer 9 0.21

None Adoption decision was independent, not strongly inﬂuenced by others 12 0.27

Education Education Years of formal education 36 10.5

Gender Female Number of female respondents 5 0.11

Some farmers were inﬂuenced by both professionals and other farmers, so some farmers have the value 1 for both of these variables. The total does not sum to 100%.

24 G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32

Author's personal copy

Returns – Perceptions about whether the technology is more

(advantage) or less (disadvantage) proﬁtable relative to

alternatives.

Flow – Perceptions about the time frame in which revenues ﬂow

to the investor. Farmers might believe that either long- or

short-term returns, or a mix of both, are preferable.

Risk – Perceptions about whether a technology is more or less

risky than alternatives. This might include risk due to variability

in yields and prices, or risk due to a lack of information.

Complexity – Perceptions about how difﬁcult the technology is

to manage relative to alternatives.

Compatibility – Perceptions about how the technology ﬁts both

into the users’ values and beliefs and also within the set of other

activities and technologies they are using.

Recalling that the interview questions were open-ended, in

many cases farmers cited more than one positive or negative from

each of the above categories. However, if we assume that each po-

sitive or negative that a farmer cites is of approximately equal

importance to him or her, then it is possible to generate an index

of perceptions. Therefore, we counted total number of both posi-

tive and negative responses for each category. The total count of

responses for positive and negative perceptions in each category

was interpreted as representing that farmer’s perception of how

advantageous or disadvantageous the technology is for that cate-

gory of system characteristics relative to his/her alternatives.

The count of perceived positive and negative characteristics in

each category was used to calculate an index of the relative per-

ceived net beneﬁt of silvopasture for that category. The resulting

‘‘net perception’’ index is equal to the total number of positive re-

sponses in a category minus the total number of negative re-

sponses in that same category. When the number of positive

responses greatly outweighs the number of negative responses,

we let this act as a proxy for the fact that the farmer perceives that

the technology has a net advantage or beneﬁt over other systems.

The net perception index as described here may not be the ideal

measure of a farmer’s perceptions, as it is based on the assumption

that the farmer places approximately equal weight on the impor-

tance of each of the different factors he or she mentioned. We con-

cluded that a farmer who cited three positive and one negative

aspect of returns (net perception index for returns = 2) was more

likely to have a favorable outlook towards the returns characteris-

tics of the system than another farmer who cited zero positive and

one negative (net perception for returns = 1). Therefore, we con-

clude that this measure is not systematically biased, and it is the

best available measure of farmers’ perceptions.

4.2. Independent variables

As previously described, farm ‘‘Scale’’ was classiﬁed into three

groups to create one class of explanatory (independent) variables.

Dummy variables were created for small and medium farm scales,

with large scale acting as the default class. Similarly, dummy vari-

ables were created for the farm ‘‘Type’’ class of variables: perennial

crop farms, cattle raising farms, and annual crop farms, with forest

product farms acting as the default class.

Farmers’ responses about ‘‘Inﬂuential people’’ (another class of

explanatory variable) in their adoption decision were classiﬁed

into three variables: Professional,Farmer, and None.‘‘Professional’’

included government agency (INTA) extension agents and occa-

sionally consultants such as veterinarians and consulting foresters.

The ‘‘Farmer’’ variable included non-professionals such as a peer

land managers, neighbors and friends, and members of a farm

cooperative or association. ‘‘None’’ suggests the lack of in-depth

conversations with others about the system but does not exclude

seeing silvopasture systems in practice. Some adopters indicated

that both professionals and other farmers helped them make their

decision, so the sum of the percentages of Professional,Farmer, and

None do not add up to 100%.

The ﬁnal explanatory variable was education of the farm man-

ager in years of formal education.

4.3. Hypothesis testing

Several hypotheses were tested on the factors explaining per-

ceptions at the time of adoption, the factors explaining changes

in perceptions over time, and the factors explaining the likelihood

of discontinuance. The hypotheses have to do with the explanatory

factors that affect farmers’ perceptions of silvopasture at the time

of adoption, including other people who were inﬂuential in the

adoption decision, farm scale, and farm type.

For instance, the ‘‘Inﬂuential person’’ factor may explain percep-

tions at the time of adoption, but not after practicing the system. It

is logical that extension agents, for instance, might collectively

emphasize certain aspects of the system based on received knowl-

edge. We would expect that the impact of inﬂuential people would

decline as experience increases. Similarly, small-scale farmers

might be more concerned with the cash ﬂow properties of the sys-

tem, since many farmers are constrained by cash in the short-term.

The costs of the system might be a negative to small-scale farmers

for the same reason.

Each net perception dependent variable was modeled with an

ordinal probit model (Bender and Benner, 2000) as a function of

the independent variables described above, which uses the under-

lying assumption of a normally-distributed dependent variable.

This is because the net perception variable could be negative or po-

sitive, with more observations in the middle of the range (usually 0

or +1), so an ordinal probit regression was likely to ﬁt the data bet-

ter than an ordinal logit (assumption of uniform distribution) or an

ordinal complementary log–log (assumption of a distribution

skewed towards one end) regression.

A log-likelihood value was derived for each of these unrestricted

models. Then restricted models were calculated, excluding each

class of independent variables, to test whether that class of vari-

ables was signiﬁcant in helping to explain the variability in percep-

tions. The null hypothesis (that the set of variables does not help to

explain perceptions) was tested using a likelihood ratio statistic:

¼2ðlnðL

ÞlnðL

ÞÞ;

where

is the likelihood ratio statistic, and ln(L

) and ln(L

) are the

log-likelihood values of the unrestricted and restricted models,

respectively.

is distributed as a chi-squared variable with degrees

of freedom equal to the number of explanatory variables excluded

from the restricted model (Wooldridge, 2006).

To test the factors that explained farmers’ likely discontinuance,

farmers’ views of whether or not they were likely to continue

assuming no cost-share payments or in-kind support programs

(dependent variable) was regressed on the net perception catego-

ries and the other farm/famer characteristics previously men-

tioned, using a binomial logit model. Because only one farmer

indicated he would discontinue assuming continued cost-share

and in-kind support, there was not enough variability to perform

a regression analysis under the assumption of continued govern-

ment support.

Cash ﬂow is an important aspect of agroforestry systems, because forestry offers a

long term ‘‘bank account’’ but few options for annual income, and agriculture offers

annual income but few opportunities for long-term investment, while agroforestry

offers some of both (Ajayi 2007). In the Fliegel and Kivlin (1966) classiﬁcation, cash

ﬂow is lumped into the ‘‘returns’’ category, but in reality, for many farmers and

foresters, the total returns of a system is quite distinct from the time period over

which it is paid.

G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32 25

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5. Results and discussion

5.1. Perceptions

There was a large number of distinct responses for the positive

and negative perceptions of silvopasture resulting from the open-

ended nature of the questions. Speciﬁcally, there were 23 distinct

positive responses and 27 distinct negative responses. Table 2

shows the overall response rate for each of the perceived positives

at the time of adoption (before) and at the time of the survey sev-

eral years later (after). Negative responses are shown in Table 3.

The vast majority of farm managers of all farm ‘‘Scales’’ and

‘‘Types’’ indicated that most felt silvopasture had been and would

continue to be beneﬁcial for them. This is demonstrated by the fact

that 97.7% of all farmers indicated they would maintain or increase

the area of their farm property dedicated to silvopasture if incen-

tive payments were continued, and 84.1% who would increase or

maintain silvopasture even without incentives. To brieﬂy summa-

rize the perceptions at the time of adoption, a majority of farmers

were optimistic that silvopasture might be able to produce levels

of timber and livestock that would each be comparable to the

amount that would be produced in a single production system

(51%); however, many were also skeptical that this could actually

be achieved principally because of the effects of shade on the pas-

ture, reducing the forage availability for livestock (30%).

Table 4 summarizes the six categories of the net perceptions

variables. Relative to the number of perceived beneﬁts, farmers

identiﬁed disadvantages of silvopasture systems less frequently

both before and after adoption. We take this to mean that the

adopters generally have a favorable view of the system.

The larg-

est perceived problem before adoption was that forest management

was difﬁcult (18% of the farmers surveyed), followed distantly by

cattle management being difﬁcult (6.8%), and underfunded govern-

ment incentives (6.8%). After adoption, the most commonly per-

ceived problems were compatibility between trees and pasture

(11% of those surveyed), not enough light for good pasture growth

(11%), capital requirements (9%), difﬁcult forest management (9%),

and underfunded government incentives (9%). As will be examined

below in more detail, the ﬁndings differed somewhat by farm

‘‘Scale’’, ‘‘Type’’, and ‘‘Inﬂuential people’’.

Another interesting result appearing in Tables 2 and 3 is that

very few farmers cited positives or negatives in the Compatibility

category. This is in contrast to much of the adoption–diffusion lit-

erature, where a technology’s compatibility with an adopter’s val-

ues and habits is generally seen as one of the key factors in

adoption (Katz et al., 1963). Unfortunately, this particular study

does not allow us to generalize to the greater population including

non-adopters. Compatibility characteristics may be a driver of non-

adoption for silvopasture, if non-adopters feel that the technology

does not ﬁt in with their farming styles and values. This is an inter-

esting realm for more research.

The consequence of having few responses in the Compatibility

category is that there is generally not sufﬁcient variability to gen-

erate good predictive models with compatibility as the dependent

variable, or to include compatibility as an independent variable in

the logit model for likely discontinuance.

5.1.1. Positive perceptions

Among the perceived beneﬁts at the time of adoption, farmers

mentioned producing two outputs from one plot of land most often

(51% of the farmers interviewed), followed by lower risk from ﬁres

(18%), reduced heat stress on cattle because of shade (18%), weed

reduction and erosion control (16% each), and payment of govern-

ment incentives (14%).

Once the farmers had practiced silvopasture for several years,

their perceptions of beneﬁts changed considerably. The frequency

at which farmers cited the beneﬁt of joint production dropped,

but remained tied for most important with that of shade reducing

heat stress on cattle (27%). Weed reduction was perceived as

important more frequently than before adoption (23%), as was

the production of fast income from cattle (23%), and lower risk of

ﬁre (21%). Experience also raised the perceived value of greater

proﬁts from 11% before to 16% after adoption. Aside from the joint

production perception, the main perception of beneﬁts that de-

creased in frequency was erosion control (from 16% to 9%).

Although it has frequently been noted by researchers (Fassola

et al., 2009), relatively few farmers (2.3–4.5%) in our survey noted

that this intensive silvicultural management inherently leads to a

high-quality timber product, by generating fewer, larger-diameter,

higher-value logs with a higher volume of timber that is free of

knots. This does not necessarily mean that the beneﬁt, which

would be realized at the ﬁnal timber sale, will not be realized, be-

cause many of the practitioners surveyed had not yet completed a

timber rotation. However, it may indicate that extensionists and

researchers in the region have not conveyed an understanding of

this beneﬁt to the population of adopters.

Observing the perceptions after practicing the system of speciﬁc

‘‘Types’’ of farmers (i.e., those who before practicing silvopasture

primarily practiced either cattle-raising, timber production, peren-

nial crop production, or annual crop production) also provided

some insights. Among those who were originally timber producers,

50% indicated that one of the beneﬁts of adding cattle was the

reduction of the risk of ﬁre, and 66.7% indicated that shade helps

cattle. 55.6% of perennial croppers believed that cattle in silvopas-

ture were beneﬁcial because it provides quick income.

Table 2

Categories and rate of responses for farmers’ positive perceptions of silvopasture.

Category Response Before

(%)

After

(%)

Costs Government provides cost sharing

incentives

14.0 2.3

Silvopasture helps reduce the amount of

weeds

16.3 22.7

Fewer leaf-cutter ants 2.3 0.0

People in stands to monitor things 0.0 2.3

More grass available in winter (frost

protection)

7.0 11.4

Returns More proﬁtable than other systems 14.0 18.2

Shade helps the livestock (less heat

stress)

18.6 27.3

Joint production: Two outputs are

produced from one plot

51.2 29.5

Higher quality pasture (more tender) in

summer

7.0 11.4

Erosion control maintains soil quality 16.3 9.1

Higher cattle stocking rate than open-air

systems

4.7 0.0

Higher timber quality 2.3 4.5

Better timber growth 0.0 2.3

Flow Long-term investment 7.0 18.2

Cattle provide quick income 11.6 27.3

Thinning provides quick income 2.3 2.3

Risk Income diversiﬁcation 2.3 4.5

Lower risk of ﬁre because cattle keep

grass short and green

18.6 20.5

Fewer livestock health problems 0.0 2.3

Complex System is practical 7.0 4.5

Compatibility Environmental beneﬁts 2.3 0.0

Pleasurable work 2.3 2.3

Desire to reforest 2.3 0.0

At the time of adoption (‘‘Before’’) and at the time of the survey, after practicing

the system (‘‘After’’).

However, since the sample is only adopters, these perceptions are not general-

izable to the larger population of all farmers. It is likely that the adopters had better

perceptions of the system to begin with, which is why they chose to adopt.

26 G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32

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5.1.2. Negative perceptions

After having practiced the system for a number of years, the

majority of farmers believed that an adequate amount of forage

could be produced in the partial shade as indicated by the fact that

only 14% believed that there was not enough light in silvopasture

for good pasture growth, and in fact, a 11% of farmers believed that

forage production was even higher in silvopasture then in conven-

tional pasture during the winter. Farmers perceived that forage

could be maintained on the silvopasture plots through intensive

management of the trees including thinning and pruning. Several

farmers indicated that silvicultural management was difﬁcult to

master, with 2.3% indicating pasture management, 4.5% livestock

management, and 9.1% forest management was difﬁcult. However

these perceptions of difﬁculty and complexity were lower after

practicing the system.

Some farmers disagreed that managing for timber and livestock

on the same plot of land was beneﬁcial in terms of joint production

of the two products. In particular 16% of all farmers (9% of large-,

6% of medium-, and 31% of small-scale farmers), said that they

would likely decrease the amount of their land under silvopasture

if no subsidies of incentives were available from the government. A

minority of these (5% of all farmers) directly volunteered in the

interview that the reason they would not continue was because

the trade-off between timber production and livestock production

was not worthwhile overall; that is, they believed that in general

forestry and cattle-ranching should be managed separately on dis-

tinct plots rather than as a silvopasture system. Other reasons for

discontinuing silvopasture are discussed below in the ‘‘Likelihood

of continuance’’ logit model.

5.1.3. Change in perceptions over time

From the increases and decreases in the frequency of speciﬁc re-

sponses Tables 2 and 3 over time, it is apparent that many of the

farmers’ perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages changed

over time from the moment of the adoption decision to the time of

the survey several years later. Many of the positive perceptions in-

creased somewhat. The perceptions that the cash ﬂow characteris-

tics of silvopasture are beneﬁcial generally increased over time.

Another notable increase in positive perceptions is an increase in

positive perceptions relating to microclimate (shade helps cattle

and grass perform better in heat, frost protection).

Perhaps the most notable change in positive perceptions is in

the Returns category, where the frequency of the response that sil-

vopasture was beneﬁcial because it provides two outputs from one

piece of land decreased from 51% to 30% over time. Also, there was

a decrease in the number of farmers believe that government sub-

sidies were an important advantage of silvopasture, probably be-

cause the government did not end up paying many of the

requested subsidies.

Most of the negative perceptions that had relatively high fre-

quencies before adoption decreased in frequency after several

years. Prominently, many fewer farmers stated that there would

not be enough light in silvopasture systems to have good pasture

growth. Also, the number of farmers who believed that forest

and livestock management were difﬁcult decreased somewhat.

5.1.4. Comparison to perceptions of silvopasture in other countries

Table 5 compares the most frequently cited silvopasture posi-

tives and negatives from previous studies in the Americas to the

ﬁndings of this study. Farmers in Argentina less frequently cited

possible public environmental beneﬁts of silvopasture systems

than those in Florida, USA (Shrestha et al., 2004), Copán, Honduras

(Pérez, 2006), or Quindío, Colombia (Calle, 2008). Silvopasture sys-

tems in Argentina aid carbon sequestration (Fassola et al., 2009,

2010), help prevent eroded soil from entering water sources, and

may be of moderate habitat value in some situations. However,

while farmers from our study did mention beneﬁts for the with-

in-farm environment (40.9% of all farmers indicated that the

microclimate was improved in at least one way), only one farmer

(2.3%) in our sample mentioned that public environmental beneﬁts

such as water quality, biodiversity or carbon sequestration were

among the reasons he decided to adopt silvopasture systems. Aside

from differences in research design, one possible reason why farm-

ers in Argentina may view silvopasture as a productive system

rather than an environmental system is that the majority of adopt-

ers use exotic tree species, in contrast to systems in USA and

Honduras that use primarily native species. Another possible

explanation that environmental values are not high on Argentines’

list of positives and negatives of silvopasture might be that

researchers have focused more in the past on increased productiv-

ity in the economic sense.

Table 3

Categories and rate of responses for farmers’ negative perceptions of silvopasture.

Category Response Before

(%)

After

(%)

Costs High capital investment 7.0 9.1

Lack of time to manage the plot 4.7 4.5

Watering livestock is time-consuming/

costly

2.3 2.3

Ant control 0.0 2.3

Returns Not enough light for good pasture growth 30.2 13.6

Soil compaction 2.3 0.0

Animals harm trees 4.7 4.5

Competition between grass and trees 4.7 2.3

Poor timber growth and form 0.0 4.5

Cattle prefer sun in winter 0.0 2.3

Long time for timber returns 2.3 0.0

Flow Lack of land available to dedicate to

agroforestry

7.0 2.3

Loss of use of pasture while trees are

established

4.7 4.5

Risk Risky markets for livestock 0.0 2.3

Trees may fall on fence 2.3 0.0

Government often does not pay cost-share

incentives

7.0 9.1

Lack of information or studies available 4.7 4.5

Animal health suffers amongst trees (more

parasites)

4.7 4.5

One speciﬁc tree species’ seeds may cause

spontaneous abortion in cattle

2.3 0.0

Institutional insecurity of government

(may raise agriculture taxes, etc.)

0.0 4.5

Cattle thefts more frequent with trees 0.0 2.3

Complexity Forest management is difﬁcult 16.3 9.1

Pasture management is difﬁcult 2.3 2.3

Livestock management is difﬁcult 7.0 4.5

Compatibility between trees and pasture 9.3 11.4

Compatibility Desired tree species were not allowed in

the program

2.3 0.0

Livestock less docile after time amongst

trees

0.0 2.3

Cleaning up pruned branches is tedious 0.0 2.3

At the time of adoption (‘‘Before’’) and at the time of the survey, after practicing

the system (‘‘After’’).

Table 4

Summary statistics of net perception indices (dependent variables) before and after

adoption.

Before adoption After adoption

Mean St.

dev.

Min Max Mean St.

dev.

Min Max

Costs 0.26 0.49 1 1 0.20 0.70 12

Returns 0.70 1.08 2 3 0.75 1.14 33

Flow 0.09 0.75 2 3 0.41 0.79 12

Risk 0.00 0.65 1 2 0.00 0.89 32

Complexity 0.28 0.67 31 0.23 0.60 21

Compatibility 0.05 0.30 11 0.02 0.15 10

G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32 27

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5.2. Independent variables

Table 1 summarizes the variables that were used as indepen-

dent variables in the regression with perceptions. Most adopters

in our survey (63.6%) indicated that they had contact with profes-

sionals such as INTA extension agents, veterinarians, or consulting

foresters, who inﬂuenced their decision to adopt the silvopasture

system. About 20.5% indicated that conversations with other farm-

ers had inﬂuenced their decision, and 27.3% stated that they had no

in-depth conversations prior to adoption that inﬂuenced their

decision.

5.3. Explanatory models of perceptions

5.3.1. At time of adoption

For the ordinal probit model of the net perceptions of silvopas-

ture in Table 6, we tested restrictions on the full models by exclud-

ing each group of explanatory variables, one at a time (‘‘Inﬂuential

people’’ in the adoption decision, then farm ‘‘Scale’’, then farm

‘‘Type’’), and using the log-likelihood value of the restricted and

unrestricted model to calculate the likelihood ratio statistic. We

found that there was no group of explanatory variables that was

easily excluded from all the models without losing explanatory

power in some of the models. The explanatory variables for farm

‘‘Type’’ category had the least overall statistical signiﬁcance, with

signiﬁcance only at the 0.1 alpha-level in a few of the models.

However, even when using the restricted model for speciﬁc

explanatory variable categories, where the likelihood ratio statistic

suggested it might be appropriate, there were only minor changes

in statistical signiﬁcance between the restricted and unrestricted

models, and all coefﬁcients that were signiﬁcantly different from

zero at any alpha 60.1 do not change sign or approximate magni-

tude. It was decided to use the unrestricted models for all

categories.

The lack of statistical signiﬁcance of the ‘‘Professional’’ and

‘‘Farmer’’ variables in the ‘‘Inﬂuential people’’ class in virtually all

the models means that there is no evidence to support the hypoth-

esis that the type of people who inﬂuence the decision adoption of

whether or not to adopt has a strong effect on the perceptions of

silvopasture. That is to say, aside from generally helping farmers

decide to adopt, there is no evidence that, as a group, professionals

or other farmers consistently alter the adopters’ perceptions about

speciﬁc beneﬁts or challenges of the system.

Recall that the signs of the coefﬁcients, as calculated in our

model, represent the effect of the explanatory variables towards

alower ordered value of the dependent variable, which is a conven-

tion from the statistical software utilized in the analysis (SAS), but

makes the results somewhat counterintuitive. In other words, a

negative (positive) sign on the coefﬁcient of an explanatory vari-

able means that a higher value of that variable makes the depen-

dent variable less (more) likely to have a lower value. For our

dummy explanatory variables, a negative (positive) coefﬁcient

means that if a farm/farmer falls into that category, then he is more

likely to have said more (fewer) negative things and fewer (more)

positive things.

The model for Flows perceptions showed the most signiﬁcance

among the coefﬁcients of the explanatory variables. Of particular

note, small- and medium-scale farmers were more likely to have

Table 5

Comparison of principal positive and negative perceptions from the literature on silvopasture systems.

Study Principal positive perceptions Principal negative perceptions

Shrestha et al. (2004) Sense of stewardship, environmental protection, diversify

income

Fire hazard, uncertainty about government regulations, length

of investment

Pérez (2006) Economic (timber, ﬁrewood, posts, shade) and ecological

(water quality) goods and services

Lack of cheap seeds/seedlings, lack of support from institutions,

high labor investment, tree mortality

Calle (2008) Reduced used of inputs, improved conditions for cattle,

increased wildlife diversity

High capital investment, lack of information and knowledge

This study: before adoption Joint production of two outputs, less heat stress on livestock,

lower forest ﬁre risk

Not enough light for good pasture growth, difﬁculty of

managing trees to allow light

This study: after adoption Joint production of two outputs, less heat stress on livestock,

quick income from livestock, reduced quantity of weeds,

lower forest ﬁre risk

Not enough light for good pasture growth, compatibility of

trees and pasture, high capital investment, difﬁculty of

managing trees to allow light

Table 6

Coefﬁcients and log-likelihood values of the ordinal probit models for net perceptions (count of positive responses minus count of negative responses) for each category of

perception, at time of adoption.

Costs Returns Flow Risk Complexity Compatibility

Professional 0.25 0.49 0.42 0.67 0.04 11.29

Farmer 0.22 0.52 0.62 0.92

⁄

0.49 1.77

Small 0.24 1.08 2.08

⁄⁄

0.83 0.08 1.95

Medium 0.22 0.39 1.39

⁄⁄

0.30 0.61 0.92

Perennial 0.01 0.15 1.13 1.20 0.15 1.81

Cattle 0.45 0.73 0.79 1.24

⁄⁄

0.14 2.17

Crops 0.24 0.38 1.63

⁄⁄

0.80 0.51 1.56

Education 0.02 0.06 0.06 0.19

⁄⁄⁄

0.01 0.13

Unrestricted model log-likelihood 29.08

56.71

32.62

31.70

31.90

8.31

Restricted model w/out inﬂuential 29.32 58.15 33.66 34.52

⁄

32.35 14.05

⁄⁄⁄

Restricted model w/out scale 29.37 57.80 35.83

⁄⁄

32.19 32.60 9.85

Restricted model w/out type 29.50 58.48 35.03 34.08 32.78 11.49

⁄

Model is for the probabilities of the dependent variable having lower ordered values, i.e. a positive value for the coefﬁcient represents that an increase in that independent

variable increases the probability of the dependent variable having a lower value.

⁄

⁄⁄

⁄⁄⁄

Represent statistical signiﬁcance at the 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01 alpha-levels. For the log-likelihood statistics of restricted models, a signiﬁcant outcome means that there is

evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the coefﬁcients of the excluded variables are all equal to zero.

Both Pearson and Likelihood Ratio

lack-of-ﬁt statistics have a large p-value (>0.1), demonstrating that there are no problems with the ﬁt of the model.

28 G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32

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stated positive things about the cash ﬂow characteristics of silvo-

pasture than large-scale farmers (at alpha = 0.05). This is intuitive,

because smaller-scale farmers are probably more constrained for

cash in the short-term. Also, large-scale farmers can produce yearly

income even with a system that has poor cash ﬂow by having

numerous parcels, staggered temporally, so the cash ﬂow of any

particular parcel is not particularly important. A small- or med-

ium-scale farmer cannot do this because timber harvest on an

exceedingly small area becomes costly. This places a premium on

a system that inherently generates income on a frequent basis. In

addition, annual croppers were less likely than forest farmers to

say positive things about silvopasture’s cash ﬂow properties (sig-

niﬁcant at alpha = 0.05), and cattle ranchers and perennial farmers

(the perennials in this case still have annual harvest, although the

plant remains intact) showed the same tendency, but the differ-

ence was not signiﬁcant. This is intuitively appealing since these

systems all produce income on an annual basis, which would gen-

erally be viewed more favorably than forestry or silvopasture,

which may not produce income during the ﬁrst few years since

cattle are not introduced into the system until trees are large en-

ough to withstand them.

The Risk perceptions model also showed that several explana-

tory variables had predictive power in explaining the variability

in the number of positive and negative perceptions with regards

to risk. The variable with the highest level of statistical signiﬁcance

is education (signiﬁcant at alpha = 0.01). Farmers with higher lev-

els of education were more likely to have a positive perception of

the risk involved with silvopasture. The reason why this might

be the case is not clear. In addition, cattle farmers were less likely

than forest farmers to have a positive perception of silvopasture’s

risk (alpha = 0.05). Annual and perennial farmers showed the same

tendency, but without statistical signiﬁcance. This is logical be-

cause one of the principal risk factors is forest ﬁre. Forest farmers

see silvopasture as positive in terms of risk because adding cattle

to the forests they already have reduces the risk of forest ﬁres.

However, cattle ranchers would be less likely to perceive this as

a relative beneﬁt since they previously had the cattle but not the

trees.

In the models for Costs,Returns,Complexity, and Compatibility,

none of the individual explanatory variables were statistically dif-

ferent than zero. Also, we could not reject the null hypotheses that

any of the set of variables had coefﬁcients that were all equal to

zero for the Costs,Returns, and Complexity models. This indicates

that our models do not do a good job explaining farmers’ percep-

tions based on the characteristics in those models. We could not

detect any difference of perceptions of beneﬁts or challenges be-

tween farmers inﬂuenced in their adoption decision by different

types of people, farms of differing scale or type, or the education

level of the farmer.

However, some of the signs of the coefﬁcients in these models

are of interest, even if not statistically signiﬁcant. In the Costs per-

ception model, farmers who typically raise cattle or annual crops

were more likely to have said more negative things and fewer po-

sitive things about the costs of silvopasture than forest farmers.

This is logical because many of the initial costs of silvopasture,

including site preparation and seedlings, are more directly related

to the forestry aspect of the system. Forest farmers would be more

accustomed to these costs. However, the high costs of forestry

practices also lead to high returns, which may explain the negative

sign on cattle and annual crop farmers in the returns model, mean-

ing they were likely to have a higher number of positive percep-

tions and fewer negatives.

5.3.2. After several years of experience with the technology

In the probit model of net perceptions several years after adop-

tion (Table 7), inﬂuences by professionals such as extension agents

or consultants in the adoption decision only had a signiﬁcant im-

pact at the alpha = 0.1 level in the Costs perceptions model. The

quite low level of signiﬁcance for ‘‘Inﬂuential people’’ in most of

the models is intuitive and can be explained by the fact that inﬂu-

ences from the time of adoption are less likely to continue inﬂu-

encing farmers’ perceptions of the technology, after having

several years to practice it. In Costs, farmers who were inﬂuenced

by extension agents were more likely to have a more negative view

of silvopasture’s costs. This is quite counterintuitive because those

farmers who are more connected to extension agents are probably

the farmers who are most likely to have received incentive pay-

ments or in-kind material support to begin silvopasture implemen-

tation. One possible explanation of this might be that if a farmer is

receiving in-kind support of supplies, he has little control over

where the extension agents obtain the materials and for what

price. Further, the extension agents probably have an incentive to

provide high-quality material, even if relatively expensive (high-

quality tree seedlings from a government or private nursery,

etc.), because they need to demonstrate positive results to the

farmers. On the other hand, farmers left to obtain supplies on their

own might ﬁnd ways to obtain the materials relatively more

cheaply. For instance, they might dig up naturally-regenerated tree

seedlings from a neighbor’s forestry plot, or collect seeds and start

their own micro-nursery.

Table 7

Coefﬁcients and log-likelihood values of the ordinal probit models for net perceptions (count of positive responses minus count of negative responses) for each category of

perception, at time of the survey (several years after adoption).

Costs Returns Flow Risk Complexity Compatibility

Professional 0.70

⁄

0.57 0.41 0.43 0.88

Farmer 0.43 0.92

⁄⁄

0.63 0.16 0.06

Small 0.65 0.90 2.31

⁄⁄

1.14 0.60

Medium 0.23 0.34 1.37

⁄⁄

1.40

⁄⁄

1.22

Perennial 0.74 0.30 0.06 1.48

⁄⁄

1.17

Cattle 0.07 0.22 0.04 0.78 1.75

⁄⁄

Crops 0.83 0.20 1.36

⁄

1.23

⁄

0.31

Education 0.01 0.00 0.03 0.09

⁄

0.13

⁄

Unrestricted model log-likelihood 39.53

59.31

36.81

45.70

24.21

Restricted model w/out inﬂuential 41.31 62.47

⁄⁄

37.97 46.32 25.50

Restricted model w/out scale 39.89 60.09 40.42

⁄⁄

48.90

⁄⁄

25.76

Restricted model w/out type 43.31

⁄

59.43 40.68

⁄

48.16 27.33

Model is for the probabilities of the dependent variable having lower ordered values, i.e. a positive value for the coefﬁcient represents that an increase in that independent

variable increases the probability of the dependent variable having a lower value.

⁄

⁄⁄

⁄⁄⁄

Represent statistical signiﬁcance at the 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01 alpha-levels. For the log-likelihood statistics of restricted models, a signiﬁcant outcome means that there is

evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the coefﬁcients of the excluded variables are all equal to zero (Wooldridge, 2006, p. 588).

Both Pearson and Likelihood Ratio

lack-of-ﬁt statistics have a large p-value (>0.1), demonstrating that there are no problems with the ﬁt of the model.

G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32 29

Author's personal copy

Having been inﬂuenced by other farmers to adopt does have a

signiﬁcant impact on farmers’ net views of the return characteris-

tics of silvopasture system. In the Returns perceptions model we

could reject the null hypothesis that being inﬂuenced by profes-

sionals and/or other farmers to adopt has no effect on positive or

negative perceptions several years later. Speciﬁcally, adopters

who were inﬂuenced by other farmers to adopt were less likely

to have a lower net perception for returns. We believe that this

is most likely due to some underlying causal factor that we could

not control for in our model. For instance, it is possible that those

farmers who were inﬂuenced by other farmers at the time of adop-

tion may be more likely to be members of a cooperative or other

group that would have longer-term impacts on their views.

As in the models for perceptions at the time of adoption, the

models that demonstrated the most predictive power of explana-

tory variable were the Flow and Risk perceptions models. In addi-

tion, the Complexity model had some variables with signiﬁcant

predictive power. We could not estimate a model for Compatibility

because of insufﬁcient variability in the dependent variable.

Small- and medium-scale farmers were more likely than large-

scale farmers to have a higher net perception of silvopasture’s cash

ﬂow (Flow). Annual cash cropping farmers were more likely to

have a negative view of silvopasture’s risk characteristics than for-

est managers. These results are quite similar to the model of per-

ceptions before adoption.

The model of the perceptions of Risk after several years practic-

ing the system is somewhat different than before adoption. Farm

scale has an impact on perceptions of risk, with small- and med-

ium-scale farmers less likely to have a negative perception of silvo-

pasture risk (only medium-scale farmers had a statistically

signiﬁcant coefﬁcient value, but the sign is the same for small-scale

farmers and the magnitude is still relatively large). We believe this

is partially because of the role of government support in silvopas-

ture adoption among the different scales, and farmers’ expecta-

tions. Smaller-scale farmers primarily received in-kind support,

and their expectations for support were met, based on their partic-

ipation in farmers’ committees. Small- and medium-scale farmers

who were not members of farmers’ committees in many cases

did not even bother to apply for support, so they did not view lack

of support as a risk. Many of the larger-scale farmers, however, be-

lieved that they would receive ﬁnancial support. If it was not re-

ceived, this would be attributable to government institutional

insecurity. Also, perennial and annual crop farmers were more

likely to have a negative view of silvopasture’s risk than forest

farmers. This is also compatible with the institutional insecurity

problem. Forest farmers would be accustomed to dealing with

the difﬁculties of requesting government aid for tree planting,

while perennial and annual croppers would not be. More years of

formal education had the effect of making farmers less likely to

perceive negatively the risk of silvopasture.

In the model of Complexity perceptions, cattle farmers were less

likely to have a negative view of silvopasture’s complexity than

forest farmers, and more educated farmers were more likely to

have a negative view. In our conversations with the farmers, we

noted that forest farmers recognized that they had to change the

way they managed their trees (more pruning, thinning, etc.). Cattle

farmers, on the other hand, did not think that their management of

the cattle was any more difﬁcult than before, since they apply the

same vaccines, waterings, supplemental feeding, etc. This is some-

what counterintuitive because one might expect that by adding

trees to cattle farms, cattle farmers’ operations become more com-

plex. However, it seems that farmers are more willing to accept

complexity created by an added component that provides new

beneﬁts than to accept a more complex management of a compo-

nent they already manage on a day-to-day basis. Tree farmers ﬁnd

it harder to accept a more complex tree management.

5.3.3. Change over time

It can be seen by comparing the results of the net perceptions

models at adoption and later that some of the coefﬁcients on the

explanatory variables had changed in either sign or statistical sig-

niﬁcance. Perhaps the most notable changes were in the farmers’

net perceptions of Returns. The coefﬁcient for small-scale farmers

became signiﬁcantly positive and the coefﬁcient for medium-scale

farmers changed from negative to positive (though not signiﬁcant).

This indicates a lowering expectation of small- and medium-scale

farmers for advantageous returns from silvopasture relative to

large-scale farmers. From observing the data, this change seems

to be mainly driven by a lower proportion of small- and

medium-scale farmers believing that a major beneﬁt of silvopas-

ture is that two products come from the same piece of land, and

an increase in the proportion of large-scale farmers who stated that

shade helps cattle and forage perform better in the summer. Also in

the Returns perceptions model, the coefﬁcients for Cattle and Crops

changed from negative and signiﬁcant to positive and insigniﬁcant.

Managers of cattle and annual cash crop farms were no longer

more likely than forest managers to believe that silvopasture

systems had beneﬁcial returns properties.

5.4. Likelihood of continuance

Most farmers indicated that they had received help starting the

silvopasture system either through government cost-share pro-

grams (57%) or in-kind support. By a wide margin, farmers indi-

cated that they would probably increase the area of land given to

silvopasture if cost-share or in-kind support programs continued.

Only one farmer responded that he would likely decrease the

amount of his land given to silvopasture in the future even with

support programs.

In addition, the majority of farmers (84%) indicated that they

would continue increase or maintain the area under silvopasture

systems, even if no government support were provided. This is a

good indication that these farmers believe that silvopasture is ben-

eﬁcial to them.

We constructed several logit models to determine the factors

that explain farmers’ stated likely discontinuance, if support pro-

grams were to be discontinued. Unfortunately, it was impossible

to include all the potential explanatory variables (net perceptions

at adoption, net perceptions after several years of using the system,

inﬂuential people, farm type, farm scale) in a single model, because

this resulted in quasi-complete separation of the data points, due

to the relatively small sample size and large number of explanatory

variables. Therefore, we tested each group of explanatory variables

separately.

The only group of variables that had satisfactory explanatory

power (likelihood ratio p-value <0.1) was the group of net percep-

tions after several years of using the system. Therefore, our models

do not provide support for the hypothesis supported for informa-

tional technology diffusion (Parthasarathy and Bhattacherjee,

1998), that potential discontinuers can be identiﬁed by their social

networks and perceptions at the time of adoption. It was necessary

to exclude the Compatibility perception variable because of the ex-

tremely limited variability (there was only a total of one positive

and two negative Compatibility responses), which caused separa-

tion problems with the model. The results of the logit model are gi-

ven in Table 8.

We ﬁrst note that the logit model shows negative signs on all

the coefﬁcients of the net perceptions. This is the expected sign,

which means that farmers with more positive net perceptions

were less likely (negative sign) to want to discontinue, or con-

versely, those with positive net perceptions were more likely to

state they wanted to continue silvopasture. The two variables with

the greatest magnitude and the only two that are statistically sig-

30 G.E. Frey et al. / Agricultural Systems 105 (2012) 21–32

Author's personal copy

niﬁcant at an alpha-level of 0.1 are the net perceptions of Returns

and of Costs. The large magnitude on the coefﬁcient of Returns is

particularly satisfying from an economic point of view, because it

lends support to the axiom that these farmers are truly seeking

to be proﬁt-maximizers. The coefﬁcient on Costs is also intuitive

economically, since it is often thought that farmers, particularly

small farmers in developing regions, have constraints on the

amount of capital they have to invest, and in their access to credit.

Flow, while not statistically signiﬁcant, has a relatively large coef-

ﬁcient, which might suggest that constraints also play a role on

from the income side; that is, farmers feel they need to have a cer-

tain amount of income at relatively frequent intervals in order to

get by. Risk and Complexity seemed less important in the continu-

ance/discontinuance decision.

Our model suggests that the perception of high costs is a predic-

tor of discontinuance. This may mean that some adopters will dis-

continue after the ﬁrst rotation of timber if they do not receive

cost-share payments to prepare and plant the trees for future silvo-

pasture rotations, despite the fact that 84% indicated that they

would continue silvopasture even without payments. The question

of whether or not the front-end investment in silvopasture is a ma-

jor disadvantage of the system that prevents widespread adoption,

as discussed in Dagang and Nair (2003) and Pagiola et al. (2004),

merits more precise research.

6. Conclusions

At the time of adoption, farmer’s perceptions of the cash ﬂow

and risk of silvopasture are explained by several factors including

the scale of the farm they operate, the type of farm they operate,

and their number of years of formal education. Somewhat surpris-

ingly, the type of person who inﬂuenced the decision to adopt did

not seem to have a large impact on farmers’ perceptions of posi-

tives and negatives. We were unable to detect a signiﬁcant impact

of any of these factors on farmers’ perceptions of costs, returns,

complexity or compatibility of silvopasture at the time of adoption.

In general, small-, medium-, and large-scale farmers in north-

eastern Argentina demonstrated different perceptions of the

advantages and disadvantages of silvopasture systems. Once

adopters had several years of practicing silvopasture, smaller-scale

farmers were more likely than large-scale farmers to have a posi-

tive net perception of silvopasture’s cash ﬂow, while larger-scale

farmers were more appreciative than small-scale farmers of silvo-

pasture’s total returns.

Over time, cattle-ranchers and annual croppers became less

likely to believe that silvopasture systems had beneﬁcial returns,

relative to forest managers. However, both cattle-ranchers and an-

nual cash croppers became less likely to see the costs of silvopas-

ture as a problem over time. Perennial croppers’ opinions seemed

to mirror forest managers’, as there were no signiﬁcant differences

in any of the models.

The only factors that appeared to be powerful explanatory vari-

ables for farmers’ likely discontinuance of silvopasture were their

perceptions of returns and costs after they had experienced the

system for several years. Social contacts from the time of adoption,

perceptions at the time of adoption, farm scale and farm type were

not good predictors of likely discontinuance.

Silvopasture systems may offer many environmental, social,

and economic beneﬁts, but their adoption still lags the beneﬁts

documented by research. To promote these systems, extension

agents and researchers should keep in mind the beneﬁts farmers

believe to be the most important when conversing with potential

future adopters. In particular, an extensionist speaking to small-

scale farmers would do well to stress particularly the advantages

of short-, medium-, and long-term cash ﬂow offered by silvopas-

ture through frequent sale of livestock, semi-frequent sale of tim-

ber thinning, and infrequent clear-cutting of sawtimber. When

speaking to medium- and large-scale farmers, the extensionist

should stress the technical beneﬁts of improved microclimate

(including reduced heat stress on livestock, improved palatability

of forage and protection of forage from winter frosts), reduced like-

lihood of forest ﬁre and reduction of weed species.

Overall, the results of this study do indicate that silvopasture

systems have signiﬁcant beneﬁts to the farmers who adopt them,

although perceptions of those beneﬁts do change and evolve over

time. These ﬁndings in Argentina differ somewhat from those

found in the Southern United States. Further research in other

countries in Latin America may help determine their applicability

in other locations where good livestock and forest products mar-

kets exist. We do feel that, with extension and education, silvopas-

toral activities may be viewed favorably by farmers in areas such as

southern Brazil and Uruguay, Chile, and Central America. The re-

sults also can inform future research on economic analyses of sil-

vopasture systems and differences by ownership size.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank various other researchers and extension

agents from the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria in

Misiones and Corrientes who aided this work, including Alejandra

Carvallo at Bernardo de Irigoyen, Clory Peruca at Centro Regional

Misiones, Roque Toloza and Miguel Correa at Puerto Rico, Jose Luis

Houriet at Cerro Azul, Horacio Babi at San Javier, Valentín Kurtz at

Eldorado, and numerous others who provided support.

Funding was provided in part by a North Carolina State Univer-

sity Seed Grant.

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Apr 2024
AGROFOREST SYST

Despite the extensive amount of evidence in the literature regarding the benefits of agroforestry systems including carbon sequestration, soil erosion reduction, climate change resilience, biodiversity conservation and other ecosystem services, the adoption of agroforestry practices presents several barriers for farmers and other stakeholders, thus requiring comprehensive examination from the scientific community. We performed a systematic literature review following the methodology described in the PRISMA framework, to provide a novel comprehensive and systematic overview of what is present in the literature regarding the obstacles stakeholders perceive with regards to agroforestry adoption, gathered through participatory research methods, which are methodologies that engage stakeholders in the research process. In this work, we highlighted and categorized 31 obstacles that stakeholders around the globe perceive according to the examined literature (n = 90) with regards to agroforestry adoption, pertaining to i) technical-agronomic, ii) socio-economic and iii) policy-legislative aspects. We produced a consultable database of the examined literature presenting the extracted and categorized data including 1) Region of interest; 2) Investigated agroforestry system; 3) Methodologies utilized in the papers; 4) Number, gender ratio and type of stakeholders; 5) Main relevant obstacles found in the paper. We highlighted the five most frequently encountered issues i) the availability or quality of knowledge or experience on technical and agronomic matters, or knowledge diffusion necessary to implement or maintain agroforestry systems ii) the perceived socio-economic issue related to the market, marketing of agroforestry products, supply chain or jobs in agroforestry; iii) issues related to the amount of labor or time necessary to implement or maintain agroforestry systems; iv) issues related to the upfront economic investment necessary to establish an agroforestry system and availability of capital; and v) issues related to the availability of technical support necessary to implement or maintain agroforestry systems.

Do farmers’ perceptions and socio-economic factors drive cocoa agroforestry and sustainable soil carbon management practices in West Africa?

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2024
AGROFOREST SYST

We evaluated the farmer’s local knowledge and perceptions of sustainable cocoa agroforestry and sustainable soil carbon management in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire using a social survey research methodology. We employed in-depth interviewing and focus group discussions to solicit information from identified key stakeholders in the cocoa supply chain focusing on the perception of sustainable cocoa agroforestry and soil carbon management. Our results revealed that about 83% and 50.5% of smallholder cocoa farmers from Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana respectively practiced agroforestry on their farms. The respondents, however, had limited knowledge about the term agroforestry and were also not very much aware of soil carbon management. Also, about 53% and 22% of the respondents from Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana perceived agroforestry practice as better than practicing cocoa monoculture. The results further revealed that most of the cocoa farmers in these study areas had limited knowledge of the approaches or strategies to achieve sustainable cocoa agroforestry and soil carbon management on their farms. At the same time, the industry’s stakeholders had different perceptions about the approaches or strategies to achieve these. Our results also revealed that educational level was the only socio-economic factor that influenced the farmer’s awareness of agroforestry and soil organic carbon. This study thus suggests the need for appropriate training and education for smallholder cocoa farmers, and harmonization of the understanding among different stakeholder groups along the cocoa supply chain of common strategies to adopt to achieve sustainable cocoa production that addresses low productivity, biodiversity loss and carbon emission within the smallholder cocoa production system in West Africa.

Effects of tree arrangements of silvopasture system on behaviour and performance of cattle: a systematic review

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2023
ANN ANIM SCI

This review aimed to provide a critical and systematic evaluation of the scientific literature about the effect of tree arrangements of the silvopasture system on the thermal environment, behaviour, and performance of cattle. We conducted a search using Web of Science and Google Scholar to identify the key literature of the theme. Peer-reviewed published articles written in English, comparing one or more tree arrangements of SPS to treeless pasture or comparing shaded and sunny areas within the SPS, were selected. The resulting manuscripts (n=191) underwent a four-step PRISMA appraisal process. This process resulted in a final sample of 37 articles, which were used for recording metadata, bibliometric analysis, and assessment of the results, using the software R. Of the 37 articles, 20 studies evaluated dairy cattle (behaviour: 14; performance: 7) and 17 evaluated beef cattle (behaviour: 6; performance: 12). The main behaviours evaluated were grazing (95%) and ruminating (90%), while weight gain (89%) was the main performance variable evaluated. The co-occurrence network analysis highlighted that the studies related the animals’ response to improving the thermal environment promoted by silvopasture systems. The main difference among tree arrangements evaluated by the studies was tree density, which ranged from 5 to 800 trees/ha; most studies covered SPS with row of trees (single row, n=16 and multiple rows, n=19). Most studies (n=32) were carried out in Brazil. The evidence of this review showed that regardless of tree arrangement, the silvopasture system improves the thermal environment for cattle, although some effects on behaviour and performance are inconclusive.

Upscaling Silvopastoral Systems in South America

Book

Full-text available

Oct 2016

The world population is expected to increase from approximately 2.5 billion in 1950 to almost 10 billion in 2050, exhibiting the highest population growth rates in history. Securing the supply of wood and timber from sustainable sources without competing for agricultural land and food production has already become a challenge in many parts of the world.South America has had the advantage of being a large continent with a relatively small population, of which a large share lives in urban areas. Historically, these conditions have permitted inefficient land-use systems such as extensive livestock grazing for beef production. However, in recent decades export-oriented industrial agriculture has become the main driver of South American land use patterns, increasing the pressure for more efficient and intensive production systems. Specialization and intensification in the land use sector have brought economic and productive benefits at a cost. They have caused the massive destruction of natural ecosystems while at the same time making national economies highly dependent on a reduced number of export products. Therefore opportunities for intensification on extensive grazing land and other inefficient land uses (often on marginal land) have to be considered. Particularly in times of pressing global environmental change and increasingly complex trade relationships, land use intensification has to take into account economic, environmental and social objectives and increase the resilience of the system as a whole.

An integrative approach to silvopastoral system design: perspectives, potentials and principles An integrative approach to silvopastoral system design: perspectives, potentials and principles

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2024
NEW ZEAL J AGR RES

Silvopastoral systems have complex impacts on a diverse range of outcomes, making it essential to design these systems using an integrative approach to maximise positive impacts to farms. This paper comprises firstly a systematic review of global silvopastoral processes, and secondly stakeholder-driven synthesis of key opportunities and challenges for future silvopastoralism situated in the context of New Zealand. The systematic review demonstrated that although under-researched, livestock interactions can have overriding influences on the system, and that the traditional functional traits that are typically deemed important for selection (N 2-fixing trees v non N 2-fixing trees, evergreen v deciduous) do not show consistent positive impacts on the agroecological environment. From the New Zealand silvopastoral participatory case study, including the stakeholder workshop, we synthesised 5 key principles that should be considered in future system designs. These were: (1) silvopastoral systems are complex and require holistic management; (2) the views, values and experiences of local people are deeply connected to silvopastoral system design; (3) spatial heterogeneity in environmental and social conditions requires locally specific decisions; (4) understanding of ecological processes must underpin all management decisions; and (5) the complexity and spatial heterogeneity present in silvopastoral systems requires high-resolution data and tools.

Farmers’ preferences and willingness to incorporate silvopastoral systems in Uruguay

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2024
AGROFOREST SYST

Agricultural production occupies large territory extensions, influencing the supply of Environmental Services (ES) and the levels of welfare and utility obtained by rural population. In Uruguay, extensive livestock on native grasslands is the most common form of Land Use and Land Cover, and is related to the conservation of this local ecosystem and its ES. Nonetheless, the emission of greenhouse gases and the animal thermal discomfort are environmental aspects of concern from these production systems. The use of integrated tree-animal-pasture systems, in silvopastoral designs, is a strategy to fulfill these environmental considerations. Besides biophysical aspects, social preferences are important factors influencing the ES from the agroecosystems. The farmers’ preferences for environmental-productive conditions and managements can generate relevant information for land management. This research aimed to assess the valuation of local farmers for the ES of SPS and their willingness to incorporate areas of silvopasture. The hypotheses evaluated were: farmers positively value the ES once certain levels of livestock productivity are obtained; farmers’ willingness to incorporate Silvopastoral Systems (SPS) are related to their farms’ structure and management. The preferences of 27 individuals were assessed using surveys with Discrete Choice (DC) and Contingent Valuation (CV) experiments, including environmental-productive scenarios of silvopasture and conventional extensive livestock. The results of the DC experiment indicated significant trade-offs among the ES, with farmers assigning greater utility levels to animal thermal comfort and livestock productivity. This analysis also indicated a tolerance of farmers to reduce up to 20% of the stocking rate in silvopastoral areas in order to obtain greater animal thermal comfort. The results of the hypothetical CV experiment showed a positive willingness from farmers to participate in a program of economic incentive for silvopastoral production. Their preferences indicated the use of reduced fractions from their properties for incorporating SPS on areas of lower livestock productivity, with lower opportunity costs. The results obtained suggest that SPS can elevate the levels of utility obtained by local farmers and the accomplishment of specific environmental and productive demands from the agricultural sector.

Landowner and Natural Resources Professional Perceptions of Silvopasture in Central and North-Central Minnesota

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2021

Silvopasture is an agroforestry practice that combines trees, forage, and livestock in an intensively managed system. We surveyed landowners and natural resources professionals in Minnesota to determine their perceptions of silvopasture. Although most respondents had heard of silvopasture, few knew a lot about it. We concluded that there is a need for more educational programming that expands the knowledge of and provides technical assistance to landowners and natural resources professionals who want to add silvopasture to their management toolboxes.

Farmers' Perceptions and Adoption of a 'Push-Pull' Technology for Control of Cereal Stemborers and Striga Weed in Western Kenya

Article

Full-text available

Stemborers and striga weed are major constraints to production of cereals in sub-Saharan Africa. In mitigation of yield losses caused, farmers apply various strategies and methods, but efficient control remains largely elusive. ICIPE and partners have developed a novel integrated management system called 'push-pull' technology (PPT). The technology involves intercropping maize with a forage legume, silverleaf desmodium and planting Napier grass around the intercrop as a trap crop. The desmodium produces volatile chemicals, which repel the stemborer moths from the maize (push) while those released by Napier grass pull or attract the moths (pull). This ensures most of the stemborers land on the Napier grass leaving the target crop protected. Additionally, chemicals produced from desmodium roots suppress and eliminate Striga. We evaluated farmers' perceptions of PPT attributes and whether this had any influence on its adoption in 15 districts in Kenya. We interviewed a random sample of 843 farmers with 438 having adopted and 405 not yet adopted but attending field days demonstrating results of PPT. The farmers' perceptions nuanced that both pests were serious constraints to their cereal production efforts and that PPT controls them leading to an increase in grain yields and that this significantly influenced technology adoption. These findings suggest that PPT could be a practically desirable option for livelihood diversification by smallholder farmers who largely depend on land as their main resource base. Effective dissemination pathways that provide farmers with appropriate information for evaluating potential benefits and tradeoffs of such management-intensive technologies are therefore required.

Los bosques nativos misioneros: estado actual de su conocimiento y perspectivas

Chapter

Full-text available

Aug 2006

SISTEMAS SILVOPASTORILES - UNA SÓLIDA ALTERNATIVA DE SUSTENTABILIDAD SOCIAL, ECONÓMICA Y AMBIENTAL♣ SILVOPASTORAL SYSTEMS: A SOLID ALTERNATIVE OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND ENVIROMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Article

Full-text available

Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach

Article

Jan 2012

Jeffrey M. Wooldridge

Regiones fitogeográficas argentinas

Article

Jan 1959

L.R. Parodi

Diffusion of Innovations

Article

Jan 1985

Content Analysis in Communications Research

Article

Sep 1952

Diffusion Of Innovations

Book

Jan 2003

E. M. Rogers

Traditions of Research on the Diffusion of Innovation

Article

Apr 1963

The process of diffusion is defined as the (1) acceptance, (2) over time, (3) of some specific item--an idea or practice, (4) by individuals, groups or other adopting units, linked to (5) specific channels of communication, (6) to a social structure, and (7) to a given system of values, or culture. The elements of this definition are treated as an "accounting scheme" in terms of which diffusion studies in the fields of sociology, anthropology, rural sociology, mass communications, etc., are reviewed and problems of research design are explicated.

Farmers’ perceptions of a ‘push–pull’ technology for control of cereal stemborers and Striga weed in western Kenya

Article

Jun 2008
CROP PROT

Striga and cereal stemborers are major constraints to cereal production in sub-Saharan Africa causing serious food security concerns. The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) and partners have developed a novel integrated management system called the ‘push–pull’ technology (PPT) in mitigation. This involves inter-cropping maize with a stemborer moth-repellent forage legume, silverleaf desmodium (push), and planting an attractive trap crop, Napier grass (pull), around the intercrop. Additionally, chemicals produced from desmodium roots inhibit Striga. We evaluated farmers’ perceptions of the pests, PPT attributes and factors influencing the likelihood of its adoption in 15 districts in western Kenya. A random sample of 923 farmers, with 478 having adopted the technology (practicing) and 445 not yet adopted but attending PPT field days (visiting) were interviewed. The practicing farmers cited both Striga and stemborers as major maize production constraints, alongside other constraints, as the main motivations for adoption of PPT. Reduced infestation by the pests, improvement in soil fertility, increase in maize grain yields, improved fodder and milk productivity were cited as main benefits of PPT. Similarly, the field day visiting farmers rated PPT as a more superior technology compared to their own maize production practices. Farmer's age, household headship by female farmers, technology attributes and exposure to a variety of extension methods significantly influenced likelihood of PPT adoption. Effective dissemination pathways are needed to provide farmers with appropriate information for evaluating potential benefits and tradeoffs of such a management-intensive technology. Further research is needed to understand how PPT contributes to farmers’ livelihood improvement and how the efficacy of different dissemination pathways in PPT technology transfer influences its adoption.

Perceptions of silvopasture systems among adopters in northeast Argentina

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